Danelectro - CT-1 Cool Cat Tremolo

sevinisthenumber · Post by **sevinisthenumber** » 31 Jan 2009, 02:07

This a a thread to the reverse engineering of the trem to see what it is and what mods can be done.......

If you own one, chime in.
I notice mine has a little volume loss but sounds good.

Good luck!

pandadandan · Post by **pandadandan** » 31 Jan 2009, 05:12

How about taking some photos of the guts, PCB and components?
That would make it much easier to trace.

sevinisthenumber · Post by **sevinisthenumber** » 23 Feb 2009, 22:51

Sorry for the wait. Here they are. It uses a TLO72 and has the photo lense i believe in the black boxof the pcb. There is a small trem pot as well?

sevinisthenumber · Post by **sevinisthenumber** » 23 Feb 2009, 22:52

more...

TNO · Post by **TNO** » 23 Feb 2009, 23:03

I have one of these. The trimmer on the circuit board is for volume level. This thing sounds great, I just wish the knobs were on the top.

Cow4prez · Post by **Cow4prez** » 23 Feb 2009, 23:23

probably the same circuit as the tuna melt is my guess

sevinisthenumber · Post by **sevinisthenumber** » 24 Feb 2009, 00:18

May be the same as the tuna...
What is the basic idea from though?

Cow4prez · Post by **Cow4prez** » 24 Feb 2009, 03:33

sevinisthenumber wrote:May be the same as the tuna...
What is the basic idea from though?

nothing concrete but my hunch. I've played both. The depth only works on the soft mode and not the hard mode in both pedals. That is all.

edit: actually the LM324 is not present in the tuna.

sevinisthenumber · Post by **sevinisthenumber** » 24 Feb 2009, 05:38

true. i just thought of that as well.

i bet its a new take on a popular design or a clone like the others. maybe the diaz??

Cow4prez · Post by **Cow4prez** » 24 Feb 2009, 06:06

sevinisthenumber wrote:true. i just thought of that as well.

i bet its a new take on a popular design or a clone like the others. maybe the diaz??

are you working on reversing this?

sevinisthenumber · Post by **sevinisthenumber** » 24 Feb 2009, 06:20

i want to learn how... there are guys who are way better/faster

Cow4prez · Post by **Cow4prez** » 24 Feb 2009, 06:40

sevinisthenumber wrote:i want to learn how... there are guys who are way better/faster

ID the 9V supply and the ground. Start at the input on the bottom at J2 and move slowly until you get to the end.

blanik · Post by **blanik** » 24 Feb 2009, 08:11

the big black square seems to be a LED/LDR assembly, so we can rule out the Tuna Melt, EA Trem, Kay and many others...

Cow4prez · Post by **Cow4prez** » 24 Feb 2009, 16:00

blanik wrote:the big black square seems to be a LED/LDR assembly, so we can rule out the Tuna Melt, EA Trem, Kay and many others...

the tuna melt has the LED LDR....

blanik · Post by **blanik** » 24 Feb 2009, 16:56

Cow4prez wrote:
blanik wrote:the big black square seems to be a LED/LDR assembly, so we can rule out the Tuna Melt, EA Trem, Kay and many others...
the tuna melt has the LED LDR....

really? the small yellow plastic pedal? i opened one once, didn't notice a LED/LDR, i remember a 16 pin IC though (unless the LED/LDR was on the reverse side of the board, i didn't take the board out... then there are good chances it's a TM

Cow4prez · Post by **Cow4prez** » 24 Feb 2009, 17:13

blanik wrote:
Cow4prez wrote:
blanik wrote:the big black square seems to be a LED/LDR assembly, so we can rule out the Tuna Melt, EA Trem, Kay and many others...
the tuna melt has the LED LDR....
really? the small yellow plastic pedal? i opened one once, didn't notice a LED/LDR, i remember a 16 pin IC though (unless the LED/LDR was on the reverse side of the board, i didn't take the board out... then there are good chances it's a TM

blanik · Post by **blanik** » 24 Feb 2009, 18:26

i don't remember seeing those two 8 pin ICs so i guess it's the upside of the board, are there part on the other side?

Cow4prez · Post by **Cow4prez** » 24 Feb 2009, 20:30

blanik wrote:i don't remember seeing those two 8 pin ICs so i guess it's the upside of the board, are there part on the other side?

no,
The food pedals have 2 boards, one where all the action is going on (the meat of circuit) and the second which has the power filtering, bias resistors and input/output buffers in addition to the switching circuit CD4053 CMOS. The accessory board has many same-parts but they are not all the same. It looks like in the cool cat, they have completely eliminated the accessory board in favor of true bypass (a better solution imo) but kept some buffering elements like the one you see on the cool cat drive. It also looks like all parts are modular and interchangeable, i.e. you can take a PCB from the drive and move it to the distortion enclosure and it would still work fine. This is how i would design pedals if i could. Bravo to Dano for doing it like this.

blanik · Post by **blanik** » 24 Feb 2009, 20:57

ok it makes sense now, i was seeing the CD4053 and i thought it was the tremolo circuit, i remember seeing the back of the main board and thinking it was just the LED and pots board and not bothering removing it...

sevinisthenumber · Post by **sevinisthenumber** » 22 Apr 2009, 16:19

I want to put the internal volume trim on the outside. Whats a good value? Audio or Linier?